DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER CIENCE

HIGHER NATIONAL DIPLOMA (HND II)

STUDY GUIDE: 2025’
COM 415 (MULTIMEDIA)
BY MAL. ALHAJI AUDU GONI

GRAPHICS

ABC
ANIMATION

TEXT
VIDEO

AUDIO
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION TO MULTIMEDIA
MEDIA, MULTIMEDIA AND HYPERMEDIA.

Media:

Media can broadly be defined as communications that is delivered through some type of medium
(TV, radio, newspaper and Computers). It refers to the physical equipment used to store electronic files
(like CDs or DVDs and portable Hard drives)

Multimedia:

Multimedia is a media that uses multiple form of information content and information processing.
Multimedia is the field concerned with the computer-controlled integration of text, graphics, drawings,
still and moving images (Video), animation, audio, and any other media where every type of information
can be represented, stored, transmitted and processed digitally.

Multimedia refers to content that uses a combination of different content forms. This contrasts with
media that use only rudimentary computer displays such as text-only or traditional forms of printed or
hand-produced material. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation,
video, or interactivity content forms.

Hypermedia:

Hypermedia is not constrained to be text based. It can include other media, e.g., graphics, images,
and especially the continuous media – sound and video.

Multimedia is the media that uses multiple forms of information content and information processing
(e.g. text, audio, graphics, animation, video, interactivity) to inform or entertain the user. Multimedia
also refers to the use of electronic media to store and experience multimedia content. Multimedia is
similar to traditional mixed media in fine art, but with a broader scope. The term “rich media” is
synonymous for interactive multimedia.

MULTIMEDIA ELEMENTS

• Text

• Graphics

• Audio

• Video

• Animation

• Interactivity

TEXT: Characters that are used to create words, sentences, and paragraphs.

GRAPHICS: A digital representation of non-text information, such as a drawing, chart, or photograph.

ANIMATION: Flipping through a series of still images. It is a series of graphics that create an illusion of
motion.

VIDEO: Photographic images that are played back at speeds of 15 to 30 frames a second and the provide
the appearance of full motion.
AUDIO: Music, speech, or any other sound.

CATEGORIES OF MULTIMEDIA

LINEAR- Active content progresses often without any navigational control for the viewer such as a
cinema presentation.

NON-LINEAR- Uses interactivity to control progress as with a video game or self-paced computer-based
training. Hypermedia is an example of non-linear content.

Multimedia presentations can be live or recorded. A recorded presentation may allow

interactivity via a navigation system. A live multimedia presentation may allow interactivity via
interaction with the presenter or performer.

APPLICATION OF MULTIMEDIA (USES)

Creative Industries

Creative industries use multimedia for a variety of purposes ranging from fine arts, to entertainment, to
commercial art, to journalism, to media and software services provided for any of the industries listed
below. An individual multimedia designer may cover the spectrum throughout their career. Request for
their skills range from technical, to analytical and to creative.

Commercial.

Much of the electronic old and new media utilized by commercial artists is multimedia. Exciting
presentations are used to grab and keep attention in advertising. Industrial, business to business, and
interoffice communications are often developed by creative services firms for advanced multimedia
presentations beyond simple slide shows to sell ideas or liven-up training. Commercial multimedia
developers may be hired to design for governmental services and nonprofit services applications as well.

Entertainment and Fine Arts

In addition, multimedia is heavily used in the entertainment industry, especially to develop special
effects in movies and animations. Multimedia games are a popular pastime and are software programs
available either as CD-ROMs or online. Some video games also use multimedia features. Multimedia
applications that allow users to actively participate instead of just sitting by as passive recipients of
information are called Interactive Multimedia.

Education

In Education, multimedia is used to produce computer-based training courses (popularly called CBTs)
and reference books like encyclopedia and almanacs. A CBT lets the user go through a series of
presentations, text about a particular topic, and associated illustrations in various information formats.

Edutainment is an informal term used to describe combining education with entertainment, especially
multimedia entertainment.

Engineering

Software engineers may use multimedia in Computer Simulations for anything from entertainment to
training such as military or industrial training. Multimedia for software interfaces are often done as
collaboration between creative professionals and software engineers.
Industry

In the Industrial sector, multimedia is used as a way to help present information to shareholders,
superiors and coworkers. Multimedia is also helpful for providing employee training, advertising and
selling products all over the world via virtually unlimited web-based technologies.

Mathematical & Scientific Research

In Mathematical and Scientific Research, multimedia is mainly used for modeling and simulation. For
example, a scientist can look at a molecular model of a particular substance and manipulate it to arrive
at a new substance. Representative research can be found in journals such as the Journal of Multimedia.

Medicine

In Medicine, doctors can get trained by looking at a virtual surgery or they can simulate how the human
body is affected by diseases spread by viruses and bacteria and then develop techniques to prevent it.

Multimedia in Public Places

In hotels, railway stations, shopping malls, museums, and grocery stores, multimedia will become
available at stand-alone terminals or kiosks to provide information and help. Such installation reduce
demand on traditional information booths and personnel, add value, and they can work around the
clock, even in the middle of the night, when live help is off duty.

A menu screen from a supermarket kiosk that provide services ranging from meal planning to coupons.
Hotel kiosk list nearby restaurant, maps of the city, airline schedules, and provide guest services such as
automated checkout. Printers are often attached so users can walk away with a printed copy of the
information. Museum kiosk are not only used to guide patrons through the exhibits, but when installed
at each exhibit, provide great added depth, allowing visitors to browser though richly detailed
information specific to that display.

(Virtual Reality)

At the convergence of technology and creative invention in multimedia is virtual reality, or VR. Goggles,
helmets, special gloves, and bizarre human interfaces attempt to place you “inside” a lifelike experience.
Take a step forward, and the view gets closer, turn your head, and the view rotates. Reach out and grab
an object; your hand moves in front of you. Maybe the object explodes in a 90-decibel crescendo as you
wrap your fingers around it. Or it slips out from your grip, falls to the floor, and hurriedly escapes
through a mouse hole at the bottom of the wall.
STAGES OF MULTIMEDIA APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

A Multimedia application is developed in stages as all other software are being developed. In
multimedia application development a few stages have to complete before other stages being, and
some stages may be skipped or combined with other stages. Following are the four basic stages of
multimedia project development:
1. Planning and Costing: This stage of multimedia application is the first stage which begins with an idea
or need. This idea can be further refined by outlining its messages and objectives. Before starting to
develop the multimedia project, it is necessary to plan what writing skills, graphic art, music, video and
other multimedia expertise will be required.

It is also necessary to estimate the time needed to prepare all elements of multimedia and prepare a
budget accordingly. After preparing a budget, a prototype or proof of concept can be developed.

2. Designing and Producing: The next stage is to execute each of the planned tasks and create a
finished product.

3. Testing: Testing a project ensure the product to be free from bugs. Apart from bug elimination
another aspect of testing is to ensure that the multimedia application meets the objectives of the
project. It is also necessary to test whether the multimedia project works properly on the intended
deliver platforms and they meet the needs of the clients.

4. Delivering: The final stage of the multimedia application development is to pack the project and
deliver the completed project to the end user. This stage has several steps such as implementation,
maintenance, shipping and marketing the product.

DELIVERING METHODS OF MULTIMEDIA CONTENT

Multimedia can be delivered using

1. Optical disk (CD-based)

2. Over a distributed network (Web-based)
3. Flash drive

OPTICAL DISKS

The most cost-effective method of delivery for multimedia materials. These devices are used to store
large amounts of some combination of text, graphics, sound, and moving video.

DISTRIBUTED NETWORK

Suitable for web-based content e.g. website. Files need to be compress before transfer
FLASH DRIVE

A USB flash drive is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial
Bus (USB) interface. USB flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller
than a floppy disk. As of January 2012, drives of 1 terabytes (TB) are available. and storage capacities as
large as 2 terabytes are planned, with steady improvements in size and price per capacity expected.

ADVANTAGES OF USING MULTIMEDIA

 It is very user-friendly. It doesn’t take much energy out of the user, in the sense that you can sit
and watch the presentation, you can read the text and hear the audio.
 It is multi sensorial. It uses a lot of the user’s senses while making use of multimedia, for
example hearing, seeing and talking.
 It is integrated and interactive. All the different mediums are integrated through the digitization
process. Interactivity is heightened by the possibility of easy feedback.
 It is flexible. Being digital, this media can easily be changed to fit different situations and
audiences
 It can be used for a wide variety of audiences, ranging from one person to a whole group.

DISADVANTAGES OF USING MULTIMEDIA

 Information overload. Because it is so easy to use, it can contain too much information at once.
 It takes time to compile. Even though it is flexible, it takes time to put the original draft together.
 It can be expensive. As mentioned in one of my previous posts, multimedia makes use of a wide
range of resources, which can cost you a large amount of money.
 Too much makes it unpractical. Large files like video and audio has an effect of the time it takes
for your presentation to load. Adding too much can mean that you have to use a larger
computer to store the files.

HYPERTEXT AND HYPERMEDIA

Hypertext is a text which contains links to other texts. The term was invented by Ted Nelson around
1965. Information is linked and cross-referenced in many different ways and is widely available to end
users. Hypertext means a database in which information (text) has been organized nonlinearly. The
database consists of pages and links between pages.

DESIGNING HYPERMEDIA

 Converting linear text to hypertext

 Text format conversions
 Dividing the text into nodes
 Link structures, automatic generation of links
 Are nodes in a database or are they separate files on file system
 Client-server or standalone

CHARACTERISTICS OF HYPERMEDIA

 It must be possible to use hypermedia both for writing and reading information.
 The information comprises non-sequential structures, and may thus be followed along
alternative paths.
 The information must follow natural associations from one information unit to another.
 The information may be hierarchically structured.
 Each information unit is presented in a separate on-screen window.
 It must be possible to share the information or parts of it among several users.
 It must be possible to have several people working against the database at the same time.
 The information resides in a database.